


Two Lies and A Truth

by agentsimmons



Category: Bachelor Mother, Classic Hollywood Movies
Genre: 1940s, Adoption, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Gen, Married Couple, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3874075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentsimmons/pseuds/agentsimmons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it is finally discovered that Polly really isn't the mother of little Johnny Merlin, she and David are left with the conundrum of how to make things right. Their life becomes complicated and their relationship is put to the test.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Lies and A Truth

Polly Merlin had come to believe all but entirely, along with her husband and father-in-law, that little Johnny Merlin was indeed her son. The fact that he wasn’t had faded to the back of her mind, like a pesky piece of information only important to remember on occasion, but better ignored. She had come to love him as though she’d given birth to him. She had even come to a point where she believed no one would ever have to know the truth. If her husband David was fine with claiming to be the boy’s father, then she would go right on claiming to be the boy’s mother and there would never be any reason for any other arrangement.

But as Polly sat in the hospital chair, listening to her husband be drilled by the doctor caring for her son, she was forced to remember all of the truths she had elected to forget. Johnny had come down with a serious fever and they had brought him to the hospital for necessary care, encouraged by his nervous grandfather who would see the boy taken care of professionally. Unfortunately for Polly, the “too many questions” she had once feared had now become a reality.

“I don’t care who you are, Mr. Merlin.” The doctor shook his head disapprovingly. “If your son was not born here and has never been treated here, as our lack of files indicate, then you must have a record. We prefer that you give us the previous doctor who provided care so we can send for the file for our own records, but at the very least you must give us an oral explanation of your son’s previous medical history.” He looked at both parents with narrow eyes full of suspicion. 

“Now listen here. This is an outrage!” John B. Merlin became livid as his lungs filled up with hot air. “You can’t treat us like this. I’ll get my lawyer.” 

“Dad, dad,” David tried his best to calm him down before matters could be made worse. “Dad, your blood pressure. Polly and I are quite capable of seeing to these things on our own. We are Johnny’s parents after all. Why don’t you go see how he’s doing for us while we settle this. Is that alright, doctor?”

Dr. Bennett, an aging man with white hair and a pristine demeanor that seemed more fitting of a high profile position such as judge, nodded and the elderly Merlin was accompanied by a nurse back to the infirmary room where his grandson was resting.

“Now, look, Mr. Merlin. I want to be reasonable, but there are laws about these things.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” David nodded. “I didn’t want to say this in front of my father, but, you see, I’m not the boy’s real father. When I met my wife, she was an independent mother. By some misunderstanding, my father got the silly notion that I was, well, Johnny’s illegitimate father, if you see what I mean.” He gave a nervous chuckle as the doctor waited for him to continue.

“Polly and I tried to convince him that I wasn’t, but the man is as pigheaded as they come. He was threatening to take Johnny away from Polly by legal action so I decided, since I was head over heels for both Polly and her son, I might as well make things simpler by marrying her and letting my father go on believing what he wanted. You see, Johnny is as much my son as any adopted child anyhow so it’s never felt like a big deal.”

“That’s quite the story.” The doctor rubbed his chin a few times. “But I’ve heard plenty of strange tales in my day. So, Mrs. Merlin, the topic falls to you now. Do you or do you not have any records of your son? It’s very suspicious, you know. I’m afraid if you don’t, I may feel the need to bring in the authorities on the matter. I don’t look kindly upon any kind of baby brokering and if-”

“He’s not my son,” Polly interrupted in a monotone voice and she felt the world fall around her. She could feel David’s eyes boring into her. She could probably even guess his bewildered thoughts. _Not this again_ , she could almost hear him say.

“I beg your pardon?”

Polly looked at David for a brief second and then at the doctor earnestly. “That little boy is not my own son,” she said again. “I tried telling people in the past, but they wouldn’t believe me. I...I found him and...oh it’s such a complicated story and I’m afraid you’ll just think I’m crazy and not believe me either, but it’s the truth. No matter how much I love Johnny and wish he was my real son, he’s not, but I don’t want to lose him.” She became slightly hysterical as she dropped her face into her hand to cover a few sobs.

“Please, calm yourself, Mrs. Merlin,” the doctor spoke in a reassuring tone as David merely stood by in confusion. “If there is something that needs to be explained, then please do. I can’t make any promises for after the fact, but I can promise to listen to your story very carefully and without any preconceived prejudice.”

“It was about two and half years ago, near Christmas. The day I gave you as Johnny’s birthday, to be exact,” she started. “I was looking for a new job on my lunch break, having been given my termination notice at my husband’s department store. You see, I was just seasonal help. As I left a hiring agency, I passed a children’s home. Before then, I hadn’t even given any thought to that building being a children’s home since it didn’t pertain to me. But there was a woman with a baby, little Johnny. She deposited him on the stoop. I don’t know if she even knocked or not. I confronted her before she could run away, but she insisted she wasn’t the baby’s mother either. She said there wasn’t any mother.”

“This all seems reasonable enough, Mrs. Merlin.” The doctor gave her a chance to catch her breath. “Sadly, many babies are left on doorsteps of foundling homes without any information. Did you then choose to take the child for yourself before he could be found? Is that why you have no information about him? You see, the homes take the necessary legal means of identifying the child as abandoned without record.”

“Well, that’s not exactly what happened next.” Polly looked guilty as she recalled how much she originally hadn’t wanted the boy. “I don’t know. I guess I just had a random moment of maternal instinct or human decency, but the baby was about to roll off the step or at least looked it so I hurried to pick it up. The door opened at that moment and so I took the baby in without thinking anything of it. Had I known what would have happened, I might have let the baby fall as awful as that sounds now. They just assumed I was his mother. They assumed I was the one abandoning him. They wouldn’t believe me. They wouldn’t even hear me out so I could tell them about the other woman and what had happened. They got some cock-eyed notion that I just had to be his mother because he cried when they took him from me and then stopped crying when they gave him back. It wasn’t my fault he felt safe in my arms, was it?

“A lot of great things have come from the mix-up, but at the time it was all very infuriating. The people at that home went to my job and spoke with David about finding it in his heart to give me my job back so that I could have money to take care of the baby. That’s how my husband and I got involved. He believed Johnny was my baby, even threatened to fire me again if I kept trying to abandon him, and since I didn’t know what else to do, I just gave in and kept him. 

David stood with mouth agape, his expression indescribable. “You mean... all those times you said you weren’t Johnny’s mother… you really meant…” He sat down in the nearest chair, flabbergasted.

“So she _did_ tell you repeatedly then that she wasn’t the mother?” The doctor looked at David for confirmation of Polly’s story.

“Well, yes, but I didn’t believe it. I-I had no reason… The professionals at the foundling home told me she was and she _had_ lost her job the same day so I…” he paused as a thought dawned on him. “Why, she even told me about the baby’s father.”

The doctor’s eyes went immediately to Mrs. Merlin for her explanation on this point.

“What was I supposed to do?” Polly geared her response toward her husband. “You had just hypothetically fired me and threatened to blacklist me from any other job looking to your store for references. You wouldn’t listen to me. No kid, no job. You’re the one that asked me why I had abandoned him so if you wouldn’t believe the truth, I had to come up with something else. _You_ asked me why I didn’t get the father’s help, I didn’t volunteer that information freely. Don’t you get it now? There was no father to get help from.”

“So all this time you’ve been lying?” David finally had no choice other than to believe her. Like the doctor had immediately suspected, there were too many red flags against her. Even now his head swam with all of the little indicators in the past that would have proven her story if he’d only paid attention.

“David, you didn’t give me any choice. You wouldn’t believe me.” Polly’s face was strained again as she worried what he now thought of her. “I know I should have tried harder and I promise I wasn’t only pretending to be his mother to rope you in if that’s what you think. I tried to run away, remember? I loved you terribly, but I would have run as far away from you as I could if it had meant keeping Johnny.” She buried her head into one of her hands once more.

“No, no, don’t cry.” David’s demeanor softened. “You’re right. I backed you into a corner. It seems the whole world did.” He grabbed his wife’s free hand and squeezed it gently.

Polly looked at him sadly and then at the doctor, regaining her composure. "That's the whole truth, doctor. Now that you know what does it mean for Johnny?"

"Well, it _is_ a pretty fantastic story.” The doctor scratched his head momentarily. "Quite a puzzling predicament. First things first, I will go ahead and have the nurse create a new file for Johnny so that we can at least start fresh. I’m going to assume you’ve kept him away from doctors to avoid suspicion, am I right?” Polly closed her eyes and nodded meekly. “Right, well, once we get the boy through this first scare, which I’m confident we will be able to do in no time, I must insist you allow us to do quite a thorough examination on him just so we can have some information for his file.”

“Sounds reasonable,” David responded again. “But I’m sure my wife meant, or at least _I’m_ quite concerned about, well, the legality of the matter. Now that the truth has come out that Johnny is not our son...” He shrugged questioningly.

“Yes, I was sure that’s what you meant.” The doctor cracked a subtle, amused grin in spite of the situation. “And more to the point I’m sure you mean to know if I’ll be reporting you to the authorities, yes?" 

“Doesn’t miss a thing, this one,” David said cheekily with a look at his wife and sideways nod at the doctor, who only smiled again at the remark. “Yes, I guess that’s the point of it,” David answered, looking back.

“Then you can rest easy on that account. I don’t have any intention of reporting you to the authorities if it can be helped or unless I feel it to be in the boy’s best interest. While I wish you hadn’t avoided bringing the boy in sooner, I can only imagine the boy has been relatively healthy enough to make that an easy lot. Quite a few people don’t even bring themselves in for regular exams until they have a scare, let alone their children if they have them. Maybe I’m a simple-minded man, but I believe you that you care for the boy as if he’s your own and I wouldn’t want to break that up.”

“Thank you so much, Dr. Bennett.” Polly gave a very obvious sigh of relief and David quickly stood to shake the doctor’s hand and “bless him” as best he could.

“However...” Dr. Bennett started half hazardly as he mulled over the situation a little more deeply. He saw Polly’s eyes grow wide in panic and her knuckles turn white as she gripped suddenly to one of her gloves, twisting it in a nervous manner. “No, no, now don’t be alarmed.” He shook his head quickly. “I was only considering the possibility of further legal troubles you might face. Your little boy will be starting school soon, I’m sure, and the government isn’t as forgiving as a simple-minded old doctor,” he said in harmless self deprecation.

“That’s rather a good point.” David’s face fell and he nodded, looking at Polly for a moment.

“I hadn’t gotten around to giving any thought to it,” she admitted. “I was just happy to take it a day at a time. I was enjoying our make believe world too much to let myself consider it, I suppose.” Her lip twitched slightly as her eyes stared blankly at nothing in particular.

“Yes, well, we’ll have to consider it now, I’m afraid.” David gave a quick shrug and twist of his head.

“And I was thinking of how I might be able to help with that,” the doctor said as he finally returned to his previous point. “My son-in-law is a lawyer. With your permission, I'd like to run this by him. Oh confidentially of course. I won't give any names, just discuss the scenario with him and get his opinion on how it might be handled. Of course, if you'd like to have your own lawyer handle it, I perfectly understand."

"No," David answered quickly and resolutely. "If there's any hope for discretion, I'd rather give you the first chance. And _my_ lawyer is my father's lawyer, so you can imagine the difficulty maintaining secrecy," he added with a nervous laugh.

"Right then, now that we have that settled, we can get back to what's important and that's obviously seeing to it that your son gets better." Dr. Bennett gave a warm smile as he preceded in giving them the current diagnosis.

* * *

David walked purposefully down the hospital corridor. Having relayed his father home a few hours before, the family’s chauffeur had returned to take the young Mr. and Mrs. Merlin home now that visiting hours were soon ending. The doctor had ensured them that there was no need to wait vigilantly by his bedside all night as the fever had already lessened and would surely be broken by time they arrived the next morning. With some difficulty, David had finally convinced Polly that they had better trust the doctor since he had already been kind with them.

He stopped just short of his destination, a small room currently only occupied by Johhny as the other patient had been discharged earlier in the afternoon. He looked around strangely as he was sure he heard something that sounded remotely like crying. He took a few small steps forward and sure enough another sob caught his ear, this time distinct enough for him to know exactly the source of it. David hurried into the room to see Polly's head buried into her handkerchief as she attempted to cry discreetly.

"Polly, darling, whatever is the matter?" For a moment he only cared about her until it dawned on him it may be Johnny. He looked over at the boy in panic for a moment, but he seemed to be doing the same as before, if not already a little better if his smoother breathing was any indication. "Johnny's going to be ok, you'll see," he guessed aimlessly at her distress. "You just need some rest. The car is here. Come on," he urged her to come along. She did, silently, some tears still escaping her eyes as they made their way to the car.

"Tell me now, what's this all about?" David asked in concern once they were comfortably seated in the backseat and he noticed she was still tense and weepy.

"It's just... I've been so afraid of this day," she started uneasy. "The truth is always bound to come out and now it has. I'm just so afraid, David.” Her face dropped upon his shoulder as he squeezed her lovingly.

"Oh, my poor dear," he said without a trace of patronizing in his tone. "Did I not make it clear earlier? I'm not upset. I still love you and Johnny more than anything in the world. Perhaps it's selfish of me, but I'm even a little glad that there was no other man in your life that was able to… Well, you know what I mean I suppose. Knowing I'm not just the second best stand in does wonders for the ego.” He tried to remain lighthearted.

"Yes, but just knowing I've lied to you so long makes me feel guilty," Polly insisted. "Oh and your father," she added in further distress. "The last thing I want is for this to upset him or for him to think badly of me."

"The old fellow adores you, there's no worry there," David's voice was filled with conviction. "He certainly might be upset about it, but by rights he got us into this mess." He looked down at Polly lovingly, stroking her hair until she moved to look up at him. "This wonderful, glorious mess.” His lips found hers in earnest.

After a few moments of silent reverie, Polly became concerned again. "David, what will we do if they don't want us to keep Johnny?”

“I don’t know, darling. But I have the faintest idea that it could never come to that. Maybe I’m just being sentimental, but it seems rather like fate brought the three of us together. I don’t think God would allow anything so cruel as our being broken up now. No, I think it’ll be alright. You’ll see.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Bachelor Mother is one of my quintessential go-to Old Hollywood films. I love the Debbie Reynolds musical remake too, but the original just leaves so much to my imagination in a good way. Ever since first seeing it many years ago, I've always wondered about after the cutesy ending. That's a general thing about Old Hollywood films. There's so many that leave you with the happy ending, but if you think about it within the context of reality, there's a lot of questions that are left unanswered. 
> 
> In this case, I've always thought that it would be inevitable that if Polly was afraid of people asking too many questions (because she doesn't have answers) within the context of the film, why would it change in the future just because she and David are married? I realize that 1939 was a different world, but Polly is unaware of even his age in the movie so certainly somebody would come along and realize things weren't on the up-and-up (especially in a time of baby brokering and baby rings). So I thought I'd finally write something where this situation arises and how it might be dealt with. Of course, so much of this will be unrealistic as I want to find that balance of reality without losing the glossiness of the film. And because of my lack of understanding the fullness of how life really was in 1939. A lot of this will use the same logic!fail principles that exist in films from this period. 
> 
> When writing him, I imagine Lewis Stone as Dr. Bennett. 
> 
> Side note: This is just one of the many little Old Hollywood pieces that I've been working on for personal gratification and I figured I'd start publishing them just in case anyone else out there is interested. I adore Old Hollywood films and sometimes like to dabble in writing fanfiction for the many films just to play around in the time period with the general themes and tropes that exist in those films.


End file.
